Of the many seminal essays Morton Bloomfield has published over the past three decades, seventeen have been selected for inclusion in this volume. Among them are his classic discussions of Chaucer’s sense of history, the idea of perfection in the Middle Ages, symbolism in medieval literature, the apocalyptic spirit, 'authenticating realism', and 'distance' in 'Troilus'. A hitherto unpublished essay, as genuinely exploratory as its predecessors, endeavors to distinguish epic and romance and introduces the concept of 'episodic motivation'. Four important essays on language and linguistics have been included, as well as several significant essay-reviews. Individually and collectively these writings bear witness to Morton Bloomfield’s strong interest in ideas, in method, in literature, and in history.
Author(s): Morton W. Bloomfield
Edition: Reprint
Publisher: Harvard University Press
Year: 1970
Language: English
Pages: 332
City: Cambridge, Mass.
Preface
I. History of Ideas
1. The Origin of the Concept of the Seven Cardinal Sins (1941)
2. Chaucer’s Sense of History (1952)
3. Some Reflections on the Medieval Idea of Perfection (1957)
II. Approaches to Medieval Literature
4. Understanding Old English Poetry (1968)
5. Symbolism in Medieval Literature (1958)
6. Episodic Motivation and Marvels in Epic and Romance
III. Chaucer and Fourteenth-Century English Literature
7. 'Sir Gawain and the Green Knight': An Appraisal (1961)
8. 'Piers Plowman' as a Fourteenth-Century Apocalypse (1961)
9. Authenticating Realism and the Realism of Chaucer (1964)
10. Distance and Predestination in 'Troilus and Criseyde' (1957)
IV. Language and Linguistics
11. Canadian English and Its Relation to Eighteenth-Century American Speech (1948)
12. Final Root-forming Morphemes (1953)
13. A Grammatical Approach to Personification Allegory (1963)
14. The Syncategorematic in Poetry: From Semantics to Syntactics (1967)
V. Essay-Reviews
15. Kenneth Sisam, 'The Structure of Beowulf' (1966)
16. Nevill Coghill, 'The Pardon of Piers Plowman' (1947)
17. D. W. Robertson and Bernard F. Huppé, 'Piers Plowman and Scriptural Tradition' (1952)
18. Sanford B. Meech, 'Design in Chaucer’s 'Troilus'' (1959–60)
Index
